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Op-ed review: Minya tensions, Khashoggi, Pyramids ‘indecency’

Op-ed writers picked up topics related to tourism, Copts, and Jamal Khashoggi in Sunday’s newspapers. A recent incident involving a foreign couple posing for explicit footage on the top of Egypt’s Pyramid continued to stir fury. State-owned daily Al-Ahram’s Makram Mohamed Ahmed also commented on the Yemen war, arguing that the implementation of a ceasefire …

Op-ed writers picked up topics related to tourism, Copts, and Jamal Khashoggi in Sunday’s newspapers. A recent incident involving a foreign couple posing for explicit footage on the top of Egypt’s Pyramid continued to stir fury.

State-owned daily Al-Ahram’s Makram Mohamed Ahmed also commented on the Yemen war, arguing that the implementation of a ceasefire and entry of humanitarian aid will test the commitment of each party to reaching a solution. Ahmed opinionated that the US Senate’s vote to end American military assistance to the Saudi-led coalition in its war on Houthis, which could be repeated in the House of Representatives, will be a pressure card to end the war.

As for Al-Ahram’s Morsi Atallah, he launched an attack on Al-Jazeera network for campaigning against Saudi Arabia using the murder of journalist Khashoggi. He said that Qatar is trying to cover up its own mess after facing accusations of involvement in the killing of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh last December. Atallah drew a comparison between the two people’s murder, arguing that Saleh’s death is no less important than Khashoggi’s but it has not equally received attention.

In the privately-owned Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, Amina Khairy selected the Minya governorate sectarian tension going on for a while where Copts are being discriminated against by extremist Muslims. She criticised turning a blind eye to the situation and the government’s neglect of the governorate, warning that things there could be a time bomb that will heavily impact the state.

On the same topic, state-owned Al-Akhabr’s Karam Gabr had a different view while commenting on the latest incident where a Muslim policeman shot dead two Coptic citizens in a dispute, as he argued that the incident was criminal but that some are inciting, faking, and falsely promoting that Copts are under threat and unprotected by the state.

Meanwhile, writers in Al-Ahram commented on the controversial Pyramids incident. Mohamed Hussein criticised the government for superficial comments that accused the Danish man who shot an erotic video to be part of a conspiracy to destroy Egypt’s tourism sector, arguing that in some logic, it was promoting tourism by attracting young people to a free society. But then the writer argued that this would not be acceptable in Egypt which has to find more effective ways in preventing such events and damaging its antiquities.

For Al-Ahram’s Ahmed Abdel Hakim, the issue revealed corruption and how anyone could buy their way with money, shedding light on the Pyramids’ guard who helped the couple in doing so, asking for better monitoring and countering the message that tourists could climb the Pyramids as they please or even worse.